


The Adventures of Dr. John H. Watson, State Alchemist...

by virdant



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-15
Updated: 2011-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-22 15:39:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sherlock is a Coat, John is short, and they still haven’t found a philosopher’s stone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Adventures of Dr. John H. Watson, State Alchemist...

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/10852.html?thread=54874724#t54874724) at the meme. An expansion of my first mini-fill, [Transport](http://virdant.livejournal.com/58606.html). Thanks to [Pann](http://pannytheangel.deviantart.com), as always, for her willingness to put up with my random giggles and orders to read specific scenes, [Trell](http://selkath.livejournal.com) for dealing with all of my whining, and Isaiah for being a wonderful cheerleader during the entire writing process. I would apologize more for what my brain has done to the original prompt, but quite frankly, this story made me smile and giggle so much when writing it that I can't honestly apologize for it.

**The ~~epic~~ Adventures of Dr. John H. Watson, State Alchemist**   
~~And that odd coat that keeps following him around~~

 _In which Sherlock is a Coat, John is short, and they still haven’t found a philosopher’s stone._

 

“Are you John Watson?”

“Yes, and you are?” John looked up at the man… who had Sherlock draped over his arm. Oh bloody hell.

“Is this your coat?” the man demanded, shaking Sherlock at him. Sherlock was appropriately limp. John took a moment to swear at Sherlock in his head. Every time Sherlock got caught breaking into other people’s flats, his response to getting caught was to _pretend he was John’s coat_. It probably didn’t help that there was a slip of paper in Sherlock’s front pocket with the words: “If lost, please return to Dr. John Watson,” and John’s phone number.

“Are you listening to me?” The man shook Sherlock at John. John wondered if Sherlock’s head—if he even had a head, did he even have a head?—was rattling.

“Er,” John finally said, “Yes?”

“It’s a bit big for you, isn’t it?”

And that was the other problem. “Yes,” John managed, “Er, yes. It is. For me to grow into.”

“You’re a bit old to be growing still.”

“Yes,” John stammered, “yes, yes, of course. I mean, I grow a lot in the winter.”

“And I suppose you shrink in the summer.”

“I suppose?” John offered. “Let me just grab that and be on my way.”

The man jerked Sherlock out of reach. “Here’s the funny thing. You see, I found this coat on the floor of my flat.”

Oh not again.

“What exactly—” The man consulted the slip of paper “—Dr. John Watson, were you doing in my flat?”

*

“Technically, all of this is Mycroft’s fault.”

“Really,” John said, trying not to look at where he thought a face should be and instead focusing on the buttons of the very nice dark coat that was lying next to him. “You mean to tell me that Mycroft Holmes, the man in charge of the entire country, is the reason for this.” He gestured at the dingy walls, the damp floor, and the tiny barred window set high up by the ceiling.

The coat sighed. “Do keep up, John.”

“Sorry, sorry.” John sighed. “So this is Mycroft’s fault. It’s _Mycroft’s_ fault that we’re sitting in prison for breaking-and-entering. It’s Mycroft’s fault we’re sitting in prison because _you_ decided that no… you weren’t content sulking around alleyways, you had to _crawl through a window_.

“Evidence, John.” A sleeve waggled at him. “Now do be quiet. A guard’s going to stop by any second, and you don’t want them to add mental illness to the reasons to keep you locked up.”

John scowled. “You could get us out of here in _seconds_.”

“I lost my gloves.” The empty sleeves waggled at him. “I suppose I could just clap my sleeves together, but gloves are much more dramatic, don’t you think?”

John slumped on the ground, wondering what the damp was doing to his shoulder and leg. Not for the first time, he wondered if he really should have moved into 221B Baker Street.

*

John met Sherlock on a cool winter day in the laboratory of St. Bart’s. Just home from Afghanistan and still going through the last bits of physical therapy for his automail shoulder and leg, Dr. John H. Watson, State Alchemist, had very quickly realized that he needed a flatmate.

“He’s a bit odd,” Mike Stamford warned as he led John down clean sterile hallways.

“How so?” John asked.

“Well, just wait until you meet him.”

“Mrs. Hudson’s a bit wary about the whole lack of a body issue.” The man—wrapped up in a coat and scarves to hide the lack of an actual body—gestured vaguely in the air. “It’s not that she won’t rent to me, but she prefers having somebody she can feed.”

“So what you’re saying is that you need somebody with a digestive system.”

“Yours is quite fetching,” Sherlock offered.

The next day, John signed the lease and moved into Baker Street.

*

Sherlock’s lack of a digestive system began many years ago when one Mycroft Holmes, 13, commented that Sherlock could not possibly perform a human transmutation.

Had their mother been paying attention, this story would not exist. However, their mother had been busy trying to determine what Sherlock’s alchemic experiments had done to the kitchen this time, so when Sherlock set out to gather the materials that made up a human body, there was nobody to stop him.

Several days later, Mycroft wandered to the storage shed to ensure that Sherlock hadn’t constructed a weapon of mass destruction in it—since the kitchen had been declared off-limits for all experiments, Alchemic or otherwise. Mycroft found the storage shed, the transmutation circle, the _blood_ , and didn’t hesitate to grab the first thing that he could reach—

A long woolen coat.

One day later, Sherlock Holmes, age six, was diagnosed a sociopath and locked away until he was twenty.

By the time Sherlock was an age proportionate to his coat length, he had gotten used to the wonders of having only a woolen coat as a body. Mummy had been kind enough to sew nice leather gloves onto the sleeves, so he could run experiments just as easily without a body as with. He didn’t even have to worry about accidents!

Really, he decided, the only thing that mattered was his intellect. Everything else was just transport.

It really was a pity that Mycroft disapproved.

*

John very quickly began to disapprove of The Coat. Mostly because since Sherlock Holmes was so content to be a coat, it was always _John_ that got the weird looks. And they weren’t even odd looks for the carefully hidden automail that John spent hours maintaining. No, John got peculiar glances and whispers because of Sherlock’s _existence_.

“It would be easier if you would just put me on,” Sherlock commented. “Much more logical.”

“I’m not _wearing_ you, Sherlock.” John ignored the little child staring at the odd turban-like blob that was serving as Sherlock’s head today, and the parents who were giving _John_ disapproving looks. As if all of this were John’s fault. “That’s unhygienic.”

“How is that unhygienic?”

“Well, have you been washed since you were six?”

“I believe this coat is dry-clean only.”

“Yeah… you aren’t helping matters, Sherlock.”

*

Sherlock never helped matters.

The first time Sherlock got caught breaking in was the first time that John realized that maybe moving into a flat with the hapless result of a human transmutation might be a bad idea.

Then he realized that moving in to a flat with the hapless result of a human transmutation who also happened to be the younger brother of the man in charge of the country was an even _worse_ idea.

“Did you know that I just got kidnapped by your arch-enemy?”

“Did he offer you money to spy on me?”

John stared. “Yes…”

“Did you accept it?”

“No! You’re living proof of an illegal human transmutation!”

“Good point. Next time you should accept it. We could use the money.”

“And you could go to _prison_. Or worse, be experimented on.”

“Why would they do that? I’m much better at alchemy than any of those idiots in the government.”

*

A month or so later, John realized that Sherlock’s worry wasn’t getting kidnapped by the government to be experimented on.

It was getting kidnapped by the government to have his body _restored_.

*

“Mycroft’s going to kill you,” Sherlock exclaimed gleefully.

“Shut up and _run_ ,” John shouted back, leg moving smoothly for once.

“You _shot_ a philosopher’s stone!” Glee was practically radiating off of The Coat. If it were possible to dance a jig and run at the same time, Sherlock would be doing so.

“I’ll shoot you if you don’t shut up!”

Sherlock shut up, but that didn’t stop him from sweeping into Mycroft’s office and informing him—loudly—that John had shot a philosopher’s stone, and if Mycroft sent them after another lead, John would shoot that one too.

“It was the only way to get it out of that guy’s hands,” John admitted. “I know you wanted it to restore Sherlock’s body.”

Mycroft hummed. “Pity.”

Sherlock’s non-existent grin was decidedly wicked. “And now we’re off to investigate a serial killer. Real investigative work.”

Mycroft ignored Sherlock, which spoke either to his greater experience or his ability to feign deafness. “Do try to stop shooting alchemic artifacts, John.”

“Right. Don’t think you’d tell Sherlock to stop sabotaging your efforts, would you?”

Mycroft stared placidly back.

John nodded. “Don’t shoot the next philosopher’s stone we find. Got it.”

*

Sometimes, John thought it would be easier if he could go back to Afghanistan. At least then he’d be able do more than chase after an empty coat and attempt to find a philosopher’s stone against said empty coat’s will.

In Afghanistan, there weren’t any angry flat owners either.

*

“Alright,” Sherlock said suddenly, sitting up from where he had been sprawled on the floor. “Ready to get out of here?”

“Oh _finally_ ,” John said. He straightened up, shaking the squeaks out of his shoulder. “How are we breaking out? From the window?”

If Sherlock had a face, it would be sporting a maniacal grin. “From the wall!”

“Bloody hell,” John muttered as Sherlock flapped his sleeves together and then pressed them against a wall. Guards were shouting and they were running, Sherlock somehow knowing the layout of the prison better than he knew the layout of the flat (“If you’d stop moving my experiments, then I wouldn’t be tripping over them in the middle of night, would I?”).

“Keep up, John!” Sherlock shouted. A sleeve jerked in a vague direction. “The serial killer is getting away!” Not for the first time, John wondered how a _coat_ managed to run so quickly. And flutter at the same time.

“We’re on the roof!” John shouted back, skidding to a halt at the edge. “And why are we chasing a serial killer? I thought that we were in prison for breaking-and-entering.”

“Not important. Get ready to jump!”

John stared down. “Sherlock… you might survive that, but I’m not _a mass of wool_.”

The Coat took a decidedly offended posture. “I’ve got cotton lining,” he retorted.

“Same thing!”

“Cotton and wool are very different materials, John!”

John sighed, grabbed onto Sherlock’s shoulder, and tried not to listen to the sound of guards running up the stairs. “Just get us out of here, Sherlock.”

Then they jumped.

*

At the end of the day, Sherlock turned over to the local authorities the same man whose flat Sherlock had broken into.

“You broke into a serial killer’s flat?”

“Good thing I’m just a coat, isn’t it?” Sherlock’s voice was far too smug for a man who had spent three hours in prison. “Imagine what would have happened if I had a body.”

“You would have died,” John said. “You should have died.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You _deserve_ to die.”

“But I didn’t.” Sherlock waved a sleeve, and then paused to contemplate a hole that was developing in the sleeve. “And now we can go home and you can drink Mrs. Hudson’s tea.”

“I have half a mind to dump her tea _on_ you.”

Sherlock sniffed. “That’s horribly rude. And you were complaining about me being unhygienic.”

“Sherlock,” he began.

The Coat’s posture shifted to look slightly more accommodating.

John shook his head. “I can’t believe I can actually _recognize_ your moods now. This is ridiculous.”

“Well,” Sherlock said, “I can recognize all of your moods.”

*

The cab ride back to the Baker Street was decidedly quiet.

“I actually like this,” Sherlock finally said from where he was swathed with scarves. “Being like this.”

John shook his head. “Once we get back home, I’m calling Mycroft and we are going to find a philosopher’s stone.” He prodded his automail shoulder and leg furiously. “And you are going to be _grateful_ to your brother for taking over the government so we’ll have funding to hunt down every possible lead for one.”

Sherlock sighed, the sound distorted from the many layers of scarves he was already fiddling with. “A body is just transport anyways. I don’t understand what’s your obsession with restoring my body. It was Mycroft’s fault anyways.”

John huffed angrily and continued prodding his shoulder and leg. He ignored The Coat with months of practice.

“And your leg isn’t actually metal. That’s psychosomatic.”


End file.
